Jagged
by Ciara2
Summary: Spike pays Buffy a visit after doing some thinking. (Set after the events of “After Life”. Spoilers for said episode.)


Title

Title: Jagged

Author: Me_Lizzie

Email: [vamp_lizzie@hotmail.com][1]

Summary: Spike pays Buffy a visit after doing some thinking. (Set after the events of "After Life". Spoilers for said episode.)

*****

"Spike… I… Hi." Buffy opened the door awkwardly, greeting the vampire with an unsure glance. She tried to remain calm and breath normally as he moved toward the door, making her flinch inwardly from the sudden movement of the air around her. 

"I need to tell you something." He muttered quietly. His eyes were everywhere, all over. Looking towards the sky, and towards the ground, and at her… everywhere. 

Buffy waited patiently, almost longingly. She'd barely said anything that day, save for wishing Dawn goodbye, and talking to Willow at lunch time. And the last time she'd spoken with Spike had been the day before… in the morning. Behind the magic shop. The words she'd uttered of her experiences still hung in her memory, almost haunting her. She prayed to some unknown force that Spike wasn't here to offer pity, or help… or make her feel worse then she already did. She'd only told him her secrets, her feelings out of the assumption that… well… that he wouldn't spiral into guilty depression, or take pity her more then the others already did… she figured he would just take it at it's face value. Though… Part of hoped he'd understand, and perhaps even empathize. 

He placed his hands on her shoulders and pulled her to the side. 

"Yesterday… what you told me… I've been thinking. God help me… I've been… I don't know what you'd call it… but I've been thinking about things that haven't bothered me since…. A long time ago. The point is… I remember. I remember what it's like. What's it like to be there." 

He stopped, and looked her in the eye for the first time. For a brief second he was worried she would begin crying. 

And she worried the exact same thing about him. 

"I… I don't know exactly what happened. But I remember being there. Being some place… oh god, it was… it was beautiful. I'd never really thought about it before, but you… I suppose you jogged my memory, didn't you, luv?" 

He laughed. It was short, and high. Hysterical, almost. She'd never heard him laugh like that before. He was ranting now, anyways, and he no longer was talking to her… but more in general to the space around them both. 

"And…I remember being Happy. And I remember being… not being. I can't even explain it in a real way, actually… I suppose I sound kind of like a nutter right now, going on about what it was like being dead. Don't I?" 

He laughed again, that odd laugh. Buffy would have called him crazy if she hadn't felt the same sort of way only a short while before. 

"I was there. I remember. I was somewhere, off everywhere else… It was… it was just… better. But then… you don't even… I came back and just Bam! I was so alive… and…"

He looked her right in the eye, and it was visible that he was in total awe of his own revelation.

"The way you explained it… harsh… and bright…. It was. I was. I was so… jagged. And I hadn't found my right puzzle piece, cause I was the jagged one… I didn't fit. And no matter how long I waited, or how hard I tried I couldn't fit… I can't fit. But I'm trying… and I won't. I mean, yeah, over a hundred years you… you learn how to cover… an be cold, be too cold… hard even… but I never fit… and maybe I'm just crazy…" 

He stopped and starred at the wall, silently in meditation.Buffy was… she felt something inside of her, but she couldn't place it. She felt hurt, and pain, and Anger, and frustration… all of it burning her insides, trying to crawl up her throat. She felt her eyes water, and her cheek dampen from her tears as it exploded out of the smallest leak it could find, and poured out in a liquid form. Liquid emotions. 

"I wanted to tell you." He started again, seemingly oblivious to her tears. She would have been a bit more hurt about this if she hadn't seen his tears that were quickly forming. 

"That… that if you feel wrong… Jagged… don't. Don't feel that way… and never let it make you cold, Buffy… cause, it will… I… I suppose I can't really explain all too well what I mean… but, don't think that you can… you can ever be the same. You know… my whole being here to say this to you might be void due to my being a vampire and all… but… but don't let the brightness hurt your eyes, luv… I did… I let it get to me… and…" 

He let the sentence hang, knowing that if he uttered another syllable, his entire world would crash. He'd crash into nothing, and he'd never pick up the pieces again. He couldn't bring his eyes to look into hers, well aware that he was near tears, and that if he saw the tears he knew were falling, he'd lose himself in her eyes. Not wanting to move, he laughed his laugh again. The one he'd developed in hysteria, every time something was going wrong.

It was an unnatural laugh.

Neither of them spoke, afraid to degrade the dutiful silence that surrounded them. Buffy wanted to sob, to scream… to tell him that she was… that she understood, and that she would, and that she really appreciated his doing this… but no matter how she thought of of saying it…. it still sounded false. Fake almost. She knew the only way she could ever possibly acknowledge his… could she even call it a sacrifice? Well, she couldn't really acknowledge him with words… or with actions… without totally degrading what he was doing. 

So she was silent. 

"Just thought you'd like to know."He whispered. 

He turned and walked out of the open door, his duster making that odd "Swish" noise behind him. It didn't matter anymore, to her… he was right… she felt like a wrong puzzle piece. She was jagged. 

But so was he. 

And, for the first time in that life, she almost smiled.

   [1]: mailto:vamp_lizzie@hotmail.com



End file.
